DESCRIPTION

Look for specified patterns in the tracked files in the work tree, blobs
registered in the index file, or blobs in given tree objects. Patterns
are lists of one or more search expressions separated by newline
characters. An empty string as search expression matches all lines.

CONFIGURATION

grep.lineNumber

If set to true, enable -n option by default.

grep.patternType

Set the default matching behavior. Using a value of basic, extended,
fixed, or perl will enable the --basic-regexp, --extended-regexp,
--fixed-strings, or --perl-regexp option accordingly, while the
value default will return to the default matching behavior.

grep.extendedRegexp

If set to true, enable --extended-regexp option by default. This
option is ignored when the grep.patternType option is set to a value
other than default.

grep.fullName

If set to true, enable --full-name option by default.

OPTIONS

--cached

Instead of searching tracked files in the working tree, search
blobs registered in the index file.

--no-index

Search files in the current directory that is not managed by Git.

--untracked

In addition to searching in the tracked files in the working
tree, search also in untracked files.

--no-exclude-standard

Also search in ignored files by not honoring the .gitignore
mechanism. Only useful with --untracked.

--exclude-standard

Do not pay attention to ignored files specified via the .gitignore
mechanism. Only useful when searching files in the current directory
with --no-index.

-a

--text

Process binary files as if they were text.

--textconv

Honor textconv filter settings.

--no-textconv

Do not honor textconv filter settings.
This is the default.

-i

--ignore-case

Ignore case differences between the patterns and the
files.

-I

Don’t match the pattern in binary files.

--max-depth <depth>

For each <pathspec> given on command line, descend at most <depth>
levels of directories. A negative value means no limit.
This option is ignored if <pathspec> contains active wildcards.
In other words if "a*" matches a directory named "a*",
"*" is matched literally so --max-depth is still effective.

-w

--word-regexp

Match the pattern only at word boundary (either begin at the
beginning of a line, or preceded by a non-word character; end at
the end of a line or followed by a non-word character).

-v

--invert-match

Select non-matching lines.

-h

-H

By default, the command shows the filename for each
match. -h option is used to suppress this output.
-H is there for completeness and does not do anything
except it overrides -h given earlier on the command
line.

--full-name

When run from a subdirectory, the command usually
outputs paths relative to the current directory. This
option forces paths to be output relative to the project
top directory.

-E

--extended-regexp

-G

--basic-regexp

Use POSIX extended/basic regexp for patterns. Default
is to use basic regexp.

-P

--perl-regexp

Use Perl-compatible regexp for patterns. Requires libpcre to be
compiled in.

-F

--fixed-strings

Use fixed strings for patterns (don’t interpret pattern
as a regex).

-n

--line-number

Prefix the line number to matching lines.

-l

--files-with-matches

--name-only

-L

--files-without-match

Instead of showing every matched line, show only the
names of files that contain (or do not contain) matches.
For better compatibility with git diff, --name-only is a
synonym for --files-with-matches.

-O [<pager>]

--open-files-in-pager [<pager>]

Open the matching files in the pager (not the output of grep).
If the pager happens to be "less" or "vi", and the user
specified only one pattern, the first file is positioned at
the first match automatically.

-z

--null

Output \0 instead of the character that normally follows a
file name.

-c

--count

Instead of showing every matched line, show the number of
lines that match.

--color[=<when>]

Show colored matches.
The value must be always (the default), never, or auto.

--no-color

Turn off match highlighting, even when the configuration file
gives the default to color output.
Same as --color=never.

--break

Print an empty line between matches from different files.

--heading

Show the filename above the matches in that file instead of
at the start of each shown line.

-p

--show-function

Show the preceding line that contains the function name of
the match, unless the matching line is a function name itself.
The name is determined in the same way as git diff works out
patch hunk headers (see Defining a custom hunk-header in
gitattributes[5]).

-<num>

-C <num>

--context <num>

Show <num> leading and trailing lines, and place a line
containing -- between contiguous groups of matches.

-A <num>

--after-context <num>

Show <num> trailing lines, and place a line containing
-- between contiguous groups of matches.

-B <num>

--before-context <num>

Show <num> leading lines, and place a line containing
-- between contiguous groups of matches.

-W

--function-context

Show the surrounding text from the previous line containing a
function name up to the one before the next function name,
effectively showing the whole function in which the match was
found.

-f <file>

Read patterns from <file>, one per line.

-e

The next parameter is the pattern. This option has to be
used for patterns starting with - and should be used in
scripts passing user input to grep. Multiple patterns are
combined by or.

--and

--or

--not

( … )

Specify how multiple patterns are combined using Boolean
expressions. --or is the default operator. --and has
higher precedence than --or. -e has to be used for all
patterns.

--all-match

When giving multiple pattern expressions combined with --or,
this flag is specified to limit the match to files that
have lines to match all of them.

-q

--quiet

Do not output matched lines; instead, exit with status 0 when
there is a match and with non-zero status when there isn’t.

<tree>…

Instead of searching tracked files in the working tree, search
blobs in the given trees.

--

Signals the end of options; the rest of the parameters
are <pathspec> limiters.

<pathspec>…

If given, limit the search to paths matching at least one pattern.
Both leading paths match and glob(7) patterns are supported.

Examples

git grep 'time_t' -- '*.[ch]'

Looks for time_t in all tracked .c and .h files in the working
directory and its subdirectories.

git grep -e '#define' --and \( -e MAX_PATH -e PATH_MAX \)

Looks for a line that has #define and either MAX_PATH or
PATH_MAX.

git grep --all-match -e NODE -e Unexpected

Looks for a line that has NODE or Unexpected in
files that have lines that match both.